The Portrait

Feb 23, 2016 — Without any overt topical references, Mike Nichols’s The Graduate captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s and the dawning countercultural revolution.

Feb 19, 2010 — The following transmission is an e-mail from September 2002, which I sent back to Criterion headquarters after spending a night at Hunter S. Thompson’s cabin in Woody Creek, Colorado, recording commentary tracks for the DVD release of Fear and Loathing...

May 14, 2026 — Jane Schoenbrun’s third feature is met with raves, while three other early entries are seeing mixed reviews.

May 1, 2026 — A new month begins with a Visconti restoration, a new issue of Senses of Cinema, and a deep backgrounder on Backrooms.

Mar 13, 2024 — This year’s edition opens with Amrou Al-Kadhi’s Layla, and Elliot Page will be on hand to talk about Close to You.

Dec 13, 2022 — MoMA presents newly restored and preserved work by Ozu, Lubitsch. René Clair, Paul Leni, and more.

Nov 2, 2022 — The director of Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country discusses his formative artistic encounters, his eclectic professional background, and on-screen Indigenous representation.

Oct 18, 2022 — Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s hypnotic serial-killer film dives into the realm of the uncanny and envisions the breakdown of Japanese society.

Sep 28, 2022 — Sarah Maldoror’s only completed narrative feature tracks the Angolan struggle for independence from Portugal and reckons with the interlocking systems of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy.

Mar 15, 2022 — The story of queerness in American cinema isn’t complete without the unusual case of These Three (1936) and The Children’s Hour (1961). Both films are based on Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play The Children’s Hour, inspired by an incident in which...